Who doesn’t like oxytocin? Who could dislike any substance referred to as a cuddle chemical? The answer may be you, if you are not in with the crowd feeling the effects of the hormone.

Carsten de Dreu and a super-long list of co-authors (listed below), have administered oxytocin to experimental participants and validated its bright side (cooperation among people in a group), but uncovered its dark side (defensive aggression towards people in other groups). Read all about it.

ABSTRACT
Humans regulate intergroup conflict through parochial altruism; they self-sacrifice to contribute to in-group welfare and to aggress against competing out-groups. Parochial altruism has distinct survival functions, and the brain may have evolved to sustain and promote in-group cohesion and effectiveness and to ward off threatening out-groups. Here, we have linked oxytocin, a neuropeptide produced in the hypothalamus, to the regulation of intergroup conflict. In three experiments using double-blind placebo-controlled designs, male participants self-administered oxytocin or placebo and made decisions with financial consequences to themselves, their in-group, and a competing out-group. Results showed that oxytocin drives a “tend and defend” response in that it promoted in-group trust and cooperation, and defensive, but not offensive, aggression toward competing out-groups.